


Adrift and Waiting (For You)

by WednesdaysDaughter



Series: From Stone to Stars [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Angst and Feels, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Reminiscing, Reunions, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 04:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14825415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WednesdaysDaughter/pseuds/WednesdaysDaughter
Summary: “What did you tell him?”Lisbeth rocks back in her chair in time to see a small spider scurry across her ceiling, before dropping the legs firmly on the floor and resting her head on the table in defeat.“I told him that the Keep fell while I was defending the city and that the darkspawn that killed my men fell to me.”





	Adrift and Waiting (For You)

**Author's Note:**

> Guess what's consumed my very body and soul? That's right kids, Dragon Age. Took me long enough right? I am a mess and it's all this game's fault. I'm currently mid-DA2 so I suspect I'll be writing about my Hawke any day now. Though I have so many Warden feels it could be a while.

The trek back to Vigil’s Keep stretches out an additional three days in order to accommodate Lisbeth’s tenacious fever.

It blurred the roads before her and after stumbling for the sixth time Oghren cursed the stone and let her lean on him while Sigrun made camp.

“Balls woman, you fell darkspawn like it’s nothin’ and fall prey to a slight chill. I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

Lisbeth pays his blustering little mind and falls into sleep’s embrace in time to miss Velanna threatening to turn him into a tree if he didn’t pipe down. Their voices blend into harmless white noise that follows her into darkness deeper than she’d seen in the waking world.

Her dreams are hazy repeats; darkspawn and dragons and blood so thick she can smell it. The screaming of the dead trail her from the Deep Roads into the Blackmarsh until she’s standing atop of the tower face to face with the Archdemon. The shrill cries of the Mother make her turn in time to be knocked from the roof by a wild tail and she clings to the ledge, panic clawing at her throat.

Fingers scream to be free of the unrelenting pressure they’re under, but Lisbeth holds strong and attempts to pull herself onto steady land when the dying roar of the Archdemon stays her actions – suddenly all goes quiet.

She can hear someone approaching and the Architect’s mask gleams in the flash of fire spewing above its head.

“Soon Grey Warden: Soon,” he rasps as blood spills from his mouth and Lisbeth lets go before he can reach down and grab her.

She doesn’t make a sound.

Lisbeth jolts awake, startling Sigrun who had been wiping her brow with a cold cloth. The seconds tick by until she’s able to calm her breathing and by then she realizes she’s alone in a makeshift tent stitched together in a fury. With startling clarity she recalls her first nightmare and Alistair’s phantom voice settles over her like a warm blanket and she counts until her heart stops trying to burst from her chest.

Her desire to see him aches acutely like a thorn wedged beneath her skin that no blade can touch. It pulses and seeps into her bones until they rebel against her muscles in order to be closer to him. He wouldn’t have let the Architect live and Lisbeth doesn’t want to imagine the look on his face when she inevitably tells him everything: She can scarcely believe it herself.

“Commander, if you’re well enough we should move. The Keep is just a day’s walk from here.”

Velanna doesn’t say they’d been camping for two nights fearful for her life as the fever slowed the healing of her wounds. Sigrun doesn’t talk about the whimpers that slipped through her lips when the fits wracked her sweat-soaked body. Oghren doesn’t pull her into a hug when he sees her decked in full armor after collapsing in a dead heap, but Lisbeth hears and feels their relief as she sheathes her daggers and marches down the dirt road.

They don’t talk about the Mother.

The silent march is interrupted by the sound of feet shuffling dirt and rocks out of the way and if she closes her eyes Lisbeth is transported to another time.

“Would you tell that mutt of yours to settle? I can hardly hear myself think between his baying and Alistair’s relentless prattle.”

“…and I told the good knight exactly what he could do with that fancy scroll of his and let me tell you his face turned such a fetching shade of red…”

“Must you squish every bird that finds itself unfortunate enough to rest on the ground? Surely there are other ways to express your displeasure with the poor creatures.”

Eyes shut, Lisbeth’s lips twitch as she recalls the way Zevran matched his casual whistles to the tune of Leliana’s faint humming until the buzz of conversation mutated into a song of sorts – punctuated by Gimli’s sharp bark when he showed Sten his latest kill.

The smell of smoke pulls her from her memories and as the sun sets on the far fields Lisbeth sees first-hand the destruction wrought upon her land. Whether she asked for it or not, the eyes of the people follow her as she stops and talks briefly with farmers and their families. Oghren stays close as if he can sense the desperate desire to lay blame at Lisbeth’s feet for the burning wheat and crumbled homes. Her eyes stare past the soot covered faces and sees towers of smoke curling from the stone walls of the Keep and her pace quickens without volition.

Garevel is the first person she sees on her journey up the road to the Keep’s gate. The walls stand brittle and broken in sections where Voldrik had yet to replace the old stone, but they endured nonetheless. Lisbeth’s heart pounds in her throat when she notices the shrouded bodies on the ground. Though not a stranger to death, the fear of seeing Anders or Nathan beneath those dirtied sheets makes water swim in her eyes.

“Commander!”

She freezes and is suddenly surrounded by people who want a piece of her. It’s overwhelming at first, but she is quickly rescued.

“Bless the Maker!” Anders shoves the crowd apart and places his hands on her shaking shoulders, “here I thought I was going to have to lead the Wardens in your stead. I’m all for glory, but that is simply too much!”

No one comments on the choked laugh Lisbeth lets loose when Nathan escapes Wade’s hysterical recon of his shop and marches across the courtyard to stand next to Anders.

“Well met Commander.”

“You bet yer ass we are!” Oghren roars crashing his fists together once the commotion settles. “While you kids were playing housekeepers we killed the mother of all darkspawn!’

This begins a contest of sorts to see whose tale of battle reigns supreme: Many defer to Lisbeth though it was pure luck that she delivered the final blow to the Mother. She’s corralled inside where Anders fails in his attempts to subtly check her for wounds he cannot see. Ser Pounce-A-Lot wraps around her legs and a hot tonic is shoved into her shaking hands.

It doesn’t take long of the news of Justice’s fate to reach her and though she knows it – he – was not truly of their world she feels the loss as keenly as any other.

“Old bugger probably jumped ship into another corpse – hey!” Oghren growls when Sigrun kicks him in the knee.

“I told you we should have left him in that cave,” Velanna mutters under her breath before shooing both dwarves away to help with the cleanup.

Blunt, as always, Oghren has a point but before Lisbeth can ask Anders is shaking his head, eyes trained on his feet. 

“Howe and the others have checked.”

“Do you think he returned to the Fade?”

Shrugging, Anders’ reply does little to ease the uncomfortable clench in Lisbeth’s gut. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

She lets it go and leans back into the bookshelf; letting the bustle of the Keep aid her in focusing on the present instead of slipping into unconsciousness once more. Someone comes by with a list of missing men and women and with each familiar name read Lisbeth feels her eyes grow heavier until Nathan is pulling her aside and escorting her to her room.

“The dead will still be dead tomorrow. Mourn for them then.”

Her bed is too big.

‘ _Gimli would love it_ ,’ she thinks before the tonic finally takes effect and a dreamless sleep greets her.

 

\- - - - - - - - - -

 

Three days later the last rights have been said and the final body is properly buried.

Empty graves for those never found haunt Lisbeth as she recalls the flesh pods and breathing walls of the Mother’s cave. She doesn’t want to think of her people dying in there, but Oghren is willing to give a voice to her dread and offers to go back and look.

“Someone outta bring those poor bastards home.”

He eventually returns with trinkets; rings, necklaces, but no bodies. Lisbeth can’t decide if that’s better or worse than finding nothing at all, but she watches him distribute the heirlooms and cannot dispute the instant effect on those left behind. She secures a flask of fine, expensive, ale as a thank you.

Oghren drinks himself stupid and tries to kiss her armor rack.

They tease him for weeks.

Varel’s pendant sits on her desk for a night before she gives it to Garevel along with the title of Seneschal. There is no ceremony, both of them too tired to organize such an event, but they share a bottle of wine and toast to the fallen. He’d been doing Varel’s job since he went missing of course but making it official seems to light a fire in Garevel’s eyes.

A week goes by before the missives begin to flood into Vigil’s Keep. Most are from people who saw what she accomplished in Amaranthine – drenched in blood with daggers buried in an ogre’s chest. Their gratitude shames her and Anders is the only one who knows her first instinct was to let the city burn.

“Ah, but it was your second thought that really counts,” he says in a moment of sincerity one sleepless night. “You did the right thing.”

The graves outside the window say differently, but he’s waiting for her downturn and shoves his elbow into her good arm.

“Besides we handled it rather spectacularly if I do say so myself! I, for one, would’ve been insulted if you came rushing back thinking we needed help. Psh, perish the thought.”

She knew he was lying, could see the strain around his eyes that hadn’t been there before she’d left, but she leaves it be.

“I left the best mage in the Wardens behind for a reason Anders. I knew you’d be fine.”

“I knew you liked me more than Velanna. I’m gonna tell her,” he sing-songed.

“Do that and I’ll tell Oghren you were the one who swapped his ale for rat piss.”

“I don’t like you at all.”

The days followed a similar routine, interrupted once by an old friend who spent a day praying for the fallen and another day debating with Anders.

“I did not come here to get sidetracked by other Wardens,” Wynne apologizes after Lisbeth ends a particularly intense debate that nearly ended in the flooding of the main hall.

Lisbeth shrugs, “Anders has that effect on a lot of people.”

“I am trying to see it from his point of view, but…” Wynne sighs and smiles her thanks when Lisbeth hands her a cup of tea.

They play catchup until the lanterns are lit and Lisbeth can make out the various constellations Alistair taught her just outside the window. Silence falls, but like those nights at camp it is a comforting one broken only when Wynne notices the wistful twinkle in Lisbeth’s eye.

“You miss him.”

“Dreadfully.”

Wynne chuckles at her honesty and asks the question no one else will, “Has he written you? Surely he knows what happened here.”

Lisbeth teases her bottom lip and stares into her tea as if it will answer instead. Wynne waits, patient as ever, hoping for a different outcome than the one she already knows.

“There was a letter waiting for me when I got back from Amaranthine. Two weeks old, it arrived just before the darkspawn, but there hasn’t been anything new.”

“And yes,” Lisbeth intervenes when Wynne opens her mouth, “I have sent him one.”

“What did you tell him?”

She rocks back in her chair in time to see a small spider scurry across her ceiling, before dropping the legs firmly on the floor and resting her head on the table in defeat.

“I told him that the Keep fell while I was defending the city and that the darkspawn that killed my men fell to me.”

Silence steps in for a bit.

Wynne doesn’t know the whole story, the bits and pieces Lisbeth skirts around, but she’s wise enough to know there’s a wound still festering deep in Lisbeth’s heart that she cannot be the one to heal.

“If I know Alistair, and I like to think that after defeating a Blight together that I know him pretty well, he saddled a horse the second he heard and is almost here.”

Lisbeth nearly laughs; it’s a dream she’s had almost nightly since returning to Vigil’s Keep. He’ll blow past the guards at the gate and slide off the poor creature all windswept and handsome, pull her into his arms and –

She always wakes up before the kiss.

“Do you know something I don’t?” Lisbeth eventually asks, turning her head in time to see the tender smile Wynne’s been wearing since she admitted how much she missed Alistair.

“Not with any certainty my dear, but let us call it a good feeling and see what happens next.”

 

Wynne leaves the next day at sunrise.

Alistair arrives at sunset.

 

The letter from Anora is lengthy and reads like the old missives she used to read with her father in Orzammar. Lisbeth is reminded why she hated politics in the first place when her eyes scan the tidy letters that form words meant to soothe her wounded pride but fail to do so. Though she regrets the loss of life, the Queen cannot spare men nor coin to aid the Wardens in reconstruction.

Lisbeth is not surprised and begins to draft a reply when her door is thrown open by a harried Nathan who’s forced to make room for Oghren who barges up the rear.

“A cloaked figure rides for the gates.”

“Bastard nearly ran down Sigrun beyond the walls when she tried to stop him!”

The quill falls from her fingers and Lisbeth is down the stairs before it hit the ground. Oghren yells for her to grab a weapon, but hope clogs her throat and a reply is lost. She flies past Anders whose hands glow a bright blue in defense. Hot on her heals the others spill into the courtyard in time to see the cloaked figure dismount gracefully.

Battle has made everyone twitchy and it’s not until Lisbeth gives a hoarse order that the few bows trained on the stranger fall to the ground. A hook sides along her spine and pulls until she’s inches away and no disguise could ever hide the way he feels in her blood. Stronger than the Calling, she’d know him anywhere.

Oghren begins to laugh when the hood falls and it’s better than any dream.

This time when Alistair sweeps her into his arms they kiss with abandon and her eyes sting reminding her she is awake and he is here. The audience has the decency to dispel, albeit slowly and with curiosity dripping in their whispers, until she is alone wrapped around Alistair – breathless and delirious.  

Panting they part long enough for Alistair to tell her he came as soon as he heard.

“Lost track of how many nights I road through,” he admits sheepishly before Lisbeth captures his lips again and again and again until they’re both seeing spots from not breathing.

“Maker’s breath I’ve missed you love,” his lips brush her forehead and pepper kisses along her tattoos. Lisbeth can barely form a reply so she laughs and nuzzles into his touch; legs locked firmly around his waist and she faintly considers making him carry her inside and upstairs so they can truly be alone.

“Speechless eh? I have that effect on many these days,” Alistair teases and her laughs become sobs and he holds her close hushing her heartache with tender mumblings.

Time has little meaning to them, but eventually Lisbeth is able to pull away and put her feet on solid ground though Alistair does not let her go far, clinging to her hand as if she were his lifeline.

“I’ll have Moric see to your poor horse,” she begins eyes taking in every inch of him like he was an illusion, “and I’ll bet you haven’t eaten in days.”

“How could I think of such trivial things like that after reading your letter?”

Lisbeth doesn’t have the strength to role her eyes so she squeezes his hand and leads him into the Keep.

“Oh and I should probably mention there will be others. I grabbed a couple men and that dog of yours. They should be here tomorrow around midday.”

She winces when thinking about their stores that grow lower with each day, but Alistair is quick with reassurances.

“There are wagons with supplies and most of the men know their way around a hammer. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

“I always knew you were good for somethin’,” Oghren says in lieu of a friendly greeting. Lisbeth watches them trade barbs before making introductions. All of the excitement catches up with her quickly and Anders is the one who eventually steps in.

“Alright then, we can grill the pretty man later after the Commander’s had her wicked way with him.”

Alistair sputters and Lisbeth musters the strength to chuckle before she pulls him past the others and upstairs to her room where two plates have been set up with a bottle of her favorite wine. A tub sits along the far wall, water hot and soap present.

“Just think,” Lisbeth begins when Alistair whistles in appreciation, “you could’ve had service like this every day if you were King.”

“Yes, tempting,” he deadpans while sliding off his muddied cloak, “clearly I was a fool to pass up such an opportunity.”

Lisbeth snorts and pops a slice of cheese into her mouth and enjoys the view. Inches of golden skin are unveiled until he stands bare, if not slightly embarrassed, before her. Throat suddenly dry, Lisbeth melts when he offers her a hand.

“I think we can fit, don’t you?”

Clothes abandoned on the floor, the bathwater cools as they welcome each other home beneath flickering flame and trembling declarations. It’s only the braying barks of Gimli that pulls Lisbeth reluctant from Alistair’s arms hours later when relief has come to Vigil’s Keep. Looking over her shoulder Lisbeth pauses to tie her robe before letting the world back in.

Alistair stares fondly and the moment stretches into another until the others can be put off no longer.

“Shall we my dear?”

Hair mused and shirtless he’s never been more handsome to her than this moment and it’s with a wry twist to her lips that she opens the door and is tackled to the ground by an exuberant war dog.

“Let her breathe you beast!”

Lisbeth’s laughter flits down into the main hall and fills the Keep with something not felt in weeks. She can barely see through her eyes crinkled with joy, but she catches Alistair standing above her attempting to rid the wiggling weight off her chest. Their eyes lock and the night suddenly doesn’t seem so far away.

‘ _I missed you too_.'

**Author's Note:**

> I have three DAO play-throughs, but my 3rd is my all-time favorite. Lisbeth is my canon!Warden and for good reason. I'd like to play the other three origins at some point. My 1st was F!City Elf (Jyn is a stone-cold badass) and 2nd was F!Noble (Because I had to make Alistair the king just once and rule as his queen. Lenora is a very classy and deadly lady)
> 
> I am already 2/3 chapters into my next Lisbeth/Alistair fic and it focuses on the Landsmeet up to the end of DAO. So keep an eye out for that!
> 
> If you're curious what Lisbeth looks like, she & Lenora can be found here: http://sweetambiguity.tumblr.com/tagged/Lisbeth+Aeducan


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